“Krzty picklin stimfrx!” the one with the most gold bullion snapped at me.

“I’m sure it’s a great language, but I don’t speak it.”

He cocked an ear and listened—then issued a sharp order. Men ran and returned with a metal box, wires, plugs and a nasty-looking helmet. I shied away from the thing but efficient-looking weapons were ground into my ribs and I desisted. It was clapped over my head, adjustments were made, then the officer spoke again.

“Can you understand me now, worm of an intruder?” he asked. “I certainly can and there is no need for such language. We have come a long way and I don’t need any insults from you.”

His lips peeled back from his teeth at that and I thought he was going to sink them into my throat. The others present gasped with shock.

“Do you know who I am?!” he shouted.

“No, nor do I care. Because you don’t know who I am. You have the pleasure of being in the presence of the first ambassador from a parallel universe. So you might say hello.”

“He is telling the truth,” a technician said, watching his flickering needles.

“Well, that’s different,” the officer said. Calming instantly. “You wouldn’t be expected to know the quarantine restrictions. My name is Kangg. Come have a drink and tell me what you are doing here.”

The booze was not bad and they were all fascinated by my story. Before I had finished they sent for the ladies and we all clinked glasses.

“Well, good luck on your quest,” Kangg said, raising his glass. “I don’t envy you your job. But as you can see we have our alien problem licked and the last thing we need is an invasion. Our war ended about a thousand years ago and was a close-run thing. We blew up all the alien spaceships and made sure the creepos stay now on planets of their own. They are ready to go for our throats again at any time, so we keep an eye on them with patrols like mine.”

“We shall return home and I shall report it would be immoral to send the fleet here,” Incuba said.

“We can lend you a few battleships,” Kangg offered. “But we are really spread kind of thin.”

“I’ll report your offer, and thanks,” I said. “But I’m afraid we need a more drastic solution. Now we have to get back because we will need an answer soon, or else.”

“Hope you lick them. Those greenies can be very mean.”

It was with utmost gloom that we returned to our ship and set course for the beacon. The parallel world booze must have been working in my brain, or desperation goosing it into top gear, because suddenly I had a most interesting thought.

“I have it!” I shouted with uncontrolled joy. “The answer to our problems at last.” We popped through the screen and I made a mad landing at the nearest airlock. “Come with me and hear what it is!”

I ran, with the girls right behind me, bursting into the meeting room just as the staff chiefs were gathering in answer to my emergency call.

“Then we can send them the aliens?” Inskipp asked.

“No way. They have alien problems of their own.”

“Then what do we do?” a senile admiral moaned. “Six parallel galaxies and all of them with human beings. Where do we send the aliens?”

“To none of them,” I said. “We send them somewhere else instead. I checked with Coypu and he says it is possible and he is muttering over the equations now.”

“Where? Tell us!” Inskipp ordered.

“Why, we use time travel. We send them through time.”

“Into the past?” He was puzzled.

“No, that wouldn’t work. They would just be hanging around waiting for the human race to develop so they could wipe us out. So the past is no good. We send them into the future.”

“You’re mad, diGriz. What does that accomplish?”

“Look, we send them a hundred years into the future. And while they are en route we have all the best scientific minds of the galaxy working on ways to knock them off. We have a hundred years to do it in. We develop something and, a hundred years from now, our people are waiting for them when they appear and they take care of the menace once and for all.”

“Wonderful!” Angelina said. “My husband is a genius. Set up the machine and send them into the future.”

“IT IS FORBIDDEN,” a deep voice said from above.

Twenty

The shocked silence that followed this unexpected announcement continued for a heartbeat or two, then was interrupted drastically when Inskipp whipped out his gun and began shooting holes in the ceiling.

“Secret meeting! Top security! Why don’t we go on TV with this session—it would be more private!”

He foamed as he spoke and shrugged off the aged admirals who tried to stop him. I vaulted the table and disarmed him, numbing him a bit in the process so he dropped, glassy-eyed, into his chair where he muttered to himself.

“Who said that?” I called out.

“I did,” a man said, appearing suddenly in midair, accompanied by a sharp popping sound. He dropped the short distance to the table, then jumped neatly to the floor.

“It beith I who spake, noble sirs. I hite Ga Binetto.”

He was something interesting to look at, dressed in baggy velvet clothes with high boots, a big hat with a curly feather, curly mustachios too which he twirled with his free hand. The other hand rested on the pommel of his sword. Since Inskipp was still muttering I would have to talk to him.

“We don’t care how tall you are—what’s your name?”

“Name? Namen—verily. I am named Ga Binetto.”

“What gives you the right to come barging into a secret meeting like this?”

“Forsooth, there be no secrets hidden from ye Temporal Constabulary.”

“The Time Police?” This was something new. “Time travelers from the past?” This was beginning to confuse even me.

“Ods bodkins, varlet, nay! Why thinkest thou that?”

“I thinkest that because that outfit and language haven’t been around for maybe thirty-two thousand years.”

He flashed me a dirty look and made some quick adjustments on some knobs on the pommel of his sword.

“Don’t be so damn superior,” Ga Binetto snapped. “You try hopping from time to time and learning all the disgusting languages and dialects. Then you wouldn’t be so quick to…”

“Can we get back to business,” I broke in. “You’re the Time Police, but not from the past. So—let me guess—the future maybe? Just nod your head, that’s right. So that’s straight. Now tell us why we can’t shoot those aliens through a couple of hundred years of time?”

“Because it is forbidden.”

“You said that before. Now, how about some reasons.”

“I don’t have to give you any.” He leered coldly. “We could have sent an H-bomb through instead of me, so how about shutting up and listening.”

“He is correct,” one of the senile admirals quavered. “Welcome to our time, illustrious time traveler. Give us your instructions, if you please.”

“That’s more like it. Respect where respect is due, if you don’t mind. All you are permitted to know is that it is the job of the Time Police to police time. We see to it that paradoxes do not occur, that major misuses of time travel, such as your proposed plan, do not happen. The very fabric of time and probability would be strained by the event should it occur. It is forbidden.”

There was a gloomy silence following this news, during which time I thought furiously. “Tell me, Ga Binetto,” I said. “Are you human or an alien in disguise?”

“I’m as human as you,” he said angrily. “Maybe even more so.”

“That’s good. Then if you are a human from the future the aliens never wiped out all the human beings in the galaxy as they plan. Right?”

“Right.”

“Then how do we win the war?”

“The war is won by…” He clamped his mouth shut and turned bright red. “That information is time-classified and I cannot tell you. Figure it out for yourself.”

“Don’t palm us off with that chromo-crap,” Inskipp growled, deep in his throat, recovered at last, “You say stop the only plan that can save the human race. Sure I say, we’ll stop it—if you tell us what else we can do. Or we go ahead as planned.”